Do people in Saudi Arabia want hospitals to share a unified medical profile?

Details

The background describes systems previously deployed across healthcare institutions to improve decision-making, communication, and data management, supporting communication technologies, interoperability, and health data sharing. Against this background, the study aimed to reduce the chances of medical errors and improve the quality of health care in Saudi Arabia.

This was a cross-sectional survey of Saudi Arabia's general population using simple random sampling. Participants provided information through an online self-administered questionnaire using a Google Form. A total of 1,345 people participated.

Among participants, 83.3% thought that seeking treatment for the same illness at more than one hospital consumed time and money. The largest proportion said they felt bothered when filling in information to create a new medical file; the abstract gives no percentage for this response. Most participants, 61%, preferred to seek treatment for illness at the same hospital or clinic.

On linking hospitals in Saudi Arabia, the largest proportion thought there should be a unified system connecting hospitals to unify medical profiles. The abstract also reports that 44.5% of participants sometimes used the internet to search for information about a specific disease or side effects.

The study assessed participants' perspectives on unifying medical profiles in the Saudi hospital system and concluded that a majority supported unification. Its reported findings concern participants' views, rather than a demonstrated reduction in medical errors or improvement in care quality.

The listed keywords were: unified, hospital systems, information, Saudi Arabia, and medical profiles.